Sentence to Hawaii
by Aeiu
Summary: In a missing scene/prequel to 'You Would Cry, Too, If It Happened To You; Hardcastle has gotten the bad news. He's being forced to go to Hawaii and leave McCormick in charge of the estate.


SENTENCED TO HAWAII

By Aeiu

It was a glorious day and Mark McCormick was up with the dawn. As he looked at out his window, he was sure as soon as the first early bird woke up, its song would be a little happier.

As a general rule, he thought getting up before 6:00 A.M. was cruel and unusual punishment but it's hard to stay in bed on the first morning of 'Operation Maui'. He had been counting the days and the magical moment was finally here. He thought back to when he had gotten the good news, just a few short months ago.

H&MC*H&MC

It was a hot Los Angeles morning and the sun beat down on the acreage of Gull's Way. Hardcastle stared at the phone as though it had come to life and bit him. He had tried everything he could think of but he had been thwarted at every turn. There was no way out of it; he was going to be forced to trade in his Lone Ranger mask for a lei.

It had been well over a year ago when he had casually volunteered to be a speaker at the judicial convention. It had been and was still a big honor, particularly for a retired judge. At one point, he had even been looking forward to it but that was before he and McCormick started hitting their stride. There was a lot of work they could be doing on his files. There were a lot of bad men just waiting to be thrown in the LA license plate factory. But instead of punching their ticket on a one-way ride up the river, he was going to be forced to spend a whole lousy week at a crummy five star hotel on the beaches of Hawaii with a bunch of guys who thought they were on Spring Break.

So what to do about McCormick? He knew the kid would love Hawaii but the thought of taking McCormick to the convention made him cringe. First off, he wouldn't be able to keep an eye on him and if anyone could find trouble in Hawaii, which would probably involve a member of a female bikini volleyball team, it was McCormick.

Second off, he didn't want the kid talking to the other judges at the convention; not because he was worried about what McCormick might say to the other judges. No, he was more worried about what the judges would say to the kid.

He remembered the last judicial convention he attended in Las Vegas. It had only just got started when the police were called out when Judge Brubreaker got caught skinny dipping in the pool. The police hadn't been impressed with his claim that clothing was optional after midnight.

Things had gone downhill after that. If it wasn't for the fact that the Nevada State Supreme Court Justice was the one who pulled the fire alarm for the fifth time, he figured the entire group would have been kicked out of the hotel, if not thrown in the nearest Vegas Cooler.

Hardcastle knew the first thing McCormick would do upon meeting the honorable justices was pump them for information on any harmless hijinks which had been attributed to Judge Milton C. Hardcastle. He knew those traitors in black robes would love to tell all they knew, the more embarrassing the better.

"_But how do I tell him that he's not going?" _thought Hardcastle. He debated with himself as he tried to come up with the best way to explain things without really telling the truth. _"The problem is he's too sensitive for his own good. He's going to take this the wrong way."_

The first step in telling McCormick the bad news was finding him. Hardcastle thought back to the long list of chores he had given the kid during breakfast. Work had fallen along the wayside during their last case so there were a lot of things that needed to be done including mowing, mulching, pruning, etc.

So he knew exactly where to find him.

McCormick's brow dripped sweat as he worked in the hot sun. His back ached and his fingers were sore but he felt surprisingly good. There was something satisfying about being able to see the result of your hard work. He loathed to admit it but the judge had been right. There was something character building about taking something run down and making it a show piece.

"McCorrmmick…" came the loud shout from somewhere behind him.

"_Think of the donkey and he will bray," _laughed McCormick to himself. He wasn't worried about whatever the judge was bellowing about. He was working hard, sweating bullets, toiling under the hot sun, earning his…

"What do you think you're doing?" asked the loud and slightly sarcastic voice over his right shoulder.

"Hmmm," McCormick pondered the question. "Let's see, I've got a rag in one hand, a can of car wax in the other, and my car under me. I'm going to go out on a limb here but my guess would be that I'm waxing the car."

"I can see that, wise guy, but why are you waxing the car."

"I'm going to say so it will look nice."

"McCormick," Hardcastle said as he visibly drew on his vast reservoir of patience, "I want you to think back all the way to this morning."

"You mean when I beat you at basketball."

"You did not beat me! You fouled me with a cheap shot and, by pure luck, got the last basket in."

"You don't think your elbow in my ribs was a cheap shot?"

"That was a perfectly legitimate move. It wasn't my fault that you tripped into it. And don't change the subject!"

"What was the subject?" Mark asked confused.

"You remember back to breakfast this morning?"

"When I had my celebratory breakfast of bacon and eggs after my basketball victory?"

"No. When I gave you a list of a few things that I wanted done around the house."

"Volume One or Volume Two?"

"Can you tell me where on that list I put wax your car?"

"It wasn't on the list, judge. I'm showing initiative."

"Initiative," Hardcastle said in a tone which reflected the reservoir was running low, "is when I ask you to rake the back of the house and you do the back and front. It's not ignoring the list of chores that I pay you to do so you can do something as pointless as making that hotrod of yours shiny."

"Do you want me to do your car when I'm done?" asked McCormick.

"Yeah."

As Mark continued to wax his car, Hardcastle continued to stand by his side, quietly watching him and making him nervous. It was obvious the man had something to say but didn't know how to say it and that was never good news.

"Did you want something else, judge?"

"Yeah, the Annual Judiciary Convention is coming up and…"

McCormick tried unsuccessfully to suppress a snort.

"What's so funny?"

"Nothing, judge. I just got this picture in my head of a bunch of guys in black robes riding the maid's cart down the hallways yelling 'Hi-yo Silver'."

Hardcastle's face reddened.

McCormick snorted louder. "You didn't, judge?"

"I did nothing of the sort, wise guy," Hardcastle protested. "We're judges and lawyers, not teenage hooligans."

"_Besides," _he added to himself, _"it was a restaurant cart and everyone knows it's 'Hi-ho, Silver away'."_

"Whatever you say, judge."

"Anyway, I've been asked to give a speech down there."

"Yeah," McCormick stopped his waxing and looked his friend in the eye. "And?"

"andyou'renotcoming," Hardcastle said quickly. He felt a pang of guilt as a flurry of unidentified emotions flashed across the young man's face.

"You're leaving?"

"It's only going to be for a week. It's going to be nothing but a bunch of judges talking about legal things. You'd be bored silly."

"You're going to be gone, out of the house, for a week?"

"Probably less."

"You're going to be gone, out of the house, out of the city for a week or less?"

"I'll be in Hawaii," Hardcastle admitted.

A big smile broke out on the young man's face. "No files, no new cases, no predawn basketball, no endless list of chores, nobody shooting at the car or me for a week?"

"Yes, I'll be in Hawaii for a week or less," Hardcastle said. The look of absolute glee on the young man's face annoyed him.

"Great," McCormick said as he clapped his hands together and his smile got even bigger. "When you leaving? Tomorrow? Today? Can I help you pack?"

"No! Not for a couple of months and what are you so happy about?"

McCormick forcibly toned down his mega-watt smile to a mere grin as he looked over to Hardcastle. "Nothing, boss man, I'm just happy for you and for all the judges who are going to get to hear your golden words for a whole week."

"I don't get it," Hardcastle griped. "When I went to DC without you; you looked like I had just shot your dog and then you followed me out there. Now you can't wait to get rid of me."

"Judge," McCormick explained patiently, "in DC, you were surrounded by a school of barracudas that were waiting for you to fall on your face. The only thing you got to worry about now is getting soaked by a lot of guys who are probably packing their water balloons."

"And the fact that I'm going to Hawaii, doesn't bother you?"

"You sent me to the big house. Believe me; I don't expect you to send me to the Big Island."

"It's not that I don't want you to go. It's…"

"And this time I don't mind you leaving me in the big house," McCormick gestured toward the main house.

"Whatever you're thinking; stop it!"

"Judge, you wound me."

"I'll do a lot worse than that if you're getting any funny ideas about what you're going to do here when I'm gone. I remember that movie we watched," Hardcastle said as he thought back to the stupid film he had been forced to sit though when the guy they were following ducked into the theatre.

"What am I going to do, dance on your desk in my underwear?"

"Don't even think about it; not even in your wildest dreams, hotshot!" Hardcastle said as he thumped Mark's chest with his finger for emphasis. "No girls, no parties, no old friend's coming over, no…"

"Come on! When's the last time I did something that stupid?" McCormick asked.

He withered slightly under Hardcastle's glare. "Lately?" he qualified.

The glare continued.

"Within the past seven day? Since yesterday?"

Hardcastle looked at his watch. "Well, since you've slept about ten of those, you're right; it has been twenty-four hours since you got in any trouble."

"See, nothing to worry about. Now why don't you go back to the house, we both got a lot of plans to make."

Hardcastle couldn't identify the song that McCormick started to whistle as he returned to the task of waxing the car. It was the song that played in 'that movie' during 'that scene'. Hardcastle shuddered as a cold chill overtook him.

"_Time to get back on that phone,"_ Hardcastle thought. _"There's got to be some way to get out of this trip."_

H&MC*H&MC

"You know we're right in the middle of hurricane season," Hardcastle said as he pulled his shirt out of the suitcase for the umpteenth time.

"No we're not," McCormick answered as he pulled the shirt out of the judge's grasp and threw it back into the case.

"I should probably check with Lieutenant Giles that thing with Arnie Whitman is getting ready to heat up. We can't leave something like that hanging."

"I check with the lieutenant and he said old Arnie has taken his new wife on their honeymoon to Bermuda."

"Old Arnie got married? He's what? Sixty years old?"

"Yeah, and with a new wife who just made twenty-one, he might not be coming back."

McCormick snapped the suitcase shut and carried it downstairs. He watched as the taxi pulled up to the house.

"Come on, judge!" McCormick shouted. "The cab's here!" He sighed as Hardcastle slowly meandered down the stairs with a large set of keys in his hand.

"Just a minute, I think I forgot to lock the file cabinet up," Hardcastle said as he tried to find the right key.

McCormick pulled the ring from his hand and steered him toward the door. "Don't worry, I'll lock them up. Now you got to get going or you'll miss your flight."

"You got that list of chores that I left on the table."

"Yeah, I saw it," McCormick said as he thought back to the paper he threw in the trash.

Hardcastle stood at the door and looked back as if he was trying to memorize everything in the house. "Well, I guess this is it?"

"Yeah, judge," McCormick said suddenly at a loss for words.

"I'm going to…you know."

"Me too, judge."

Hardcastle walked out of the house as though he was walking his last mile. He turned back one last time to face McCormick who looked as though he had gotten the diamond ring out of the cracker jack box and discovered it was just glass and cheap metal.

"McCormick."

"Yeah, judge."

"Don't do anything stupid."

"What could happen in a week?" McCormick said with a confident smile.

"_What could happen in seven days?"_

Hardcastle tried to take comfort in that thought as Gull Way got smaller in the rearview mirror of the cab. But he couldn't; he was filled with the awful thought that he might never see his house again.

"_Now you're just being ridiculous," _Hardcastle chided himself. _"The kid's not going to do anything stupid."_

As McCormick watched the cab disappear from view, he entered the house and, for a moment, reveled in the absolute quiet. He pulled the boom box from its hiding place and hit the play button. His smile returned as the loud music filled the halls.

"_Let the good times roll," _he smiled to himself as he loosened his shirt and headed into the den_  
_

THE END


End file.
